Behold-Jesus

How do we know that Jesus is the Messiah and not another prophet? Why do we follow him and not another? That is because the Old Testament prophecies of Christ’s coming had been fulfilled in Jesus. Let’s begin in the New Testament and work back from there.

In Matthew 16:13-17, Jesus questions Peter about who Jesus is:  When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”  They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”  He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”  Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”

In the Road to Emmaus account in Luke 24:27, we are told that in the encounter of the two disciples with Jesus, that “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”  Jesus would have referred to these following texts to show the fulfillment of the Old Testament:

Numbers: Numbers 21:9

“Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

This is a symbolic “type” prefiguring the Cross, an instrument of death, which becomes the source of life as Jesus is nailed to it and transforms it into the instrument of our salvation.

The Old Testament goes on:

Isaiah 52:14-15
See, my servant shall prosper, he shall be raised high and greatly exalted.

Isaiah 53:3-10
There was in him no stately bearing to make us look at him, nor appearance that would attract us to him.  He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, accustomed to infirmity, one of those from whom men hide their faces, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.  Yet it was our infirmities that he bore, our sufferings that he endured, while we thought of him as stricken, as one smitten by God and afflicted.  But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins. Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.  We had all gone astray like sheep, each following his own way; But the LORD laid upon him the guilt of us all.
Though he was harshly treated, he submitted and opened not his mouth; Like a lamb led to the slaughter or a sheep before the shearers, he was silent and opened not his mouth.  Oppressed and condemned, he was taken away, and who would have thought any more of his destiny?  If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him.

“The New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is unveiled in the New.”   St. Augustine
God’s plan for our salvation is coherent and cohesive, and one.  Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, prophesied of old, revealed in time.

One of the approaches to understanding who Jesus is to look at the Nicene Creed, which we recite at mass every Sunday.

The Nicene Creed is the most widely accepted and used brief statement of the Christian Faith. It is common ground to Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Lutherans, Calvinists, and many other Christian groups. Many groups that do not have a tradition of using it in their services nevertheless are committed to the doctrines it teaches.

When the Nicene Creed was drawn up, the chief enemy was Arianism, which denied that Jesus was fully God. Arius was a priest in Alexandria in Egypt, in the early 300’s. He taught that the Father, in the beginning, created (or begot) the Son and that the Son, in conjunction with the Father, then proceeded to create the world. The result of this was to make the Son a created being, and hence not God in any meaningful sense.

It was also suspiciously like the theories of those Gnostics and pagans who held that God was too perfect to create something like a material world, and so introduced one or more intermediate beings between God and the world. God created A, who created B, who created C, . . . who created Z, who created the world. Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, sent for Arius and questioned him. Arius stuck to his position and was finally excommunicated by a council of Egyptian bishops. He went to Nicomedia in Asia, where he wrote letters defending his position to various bishops. Finally, Emperor Constantine summoned a council of Bishops in Nicea (across the straits from modern Istanbul), and there in 325 the Bishops of the Church, by a decided majority, repudiated Arius and produced the first draft of what is now called the Nicene Creed.

The Arian position has been revived in our own day by the Watchtower Society (the Jehovah’s Witnesses), who explicitly hail Arius as a great witness to the truth. So here we have “begotten of the Father before all times, before all ages.” Arius was fond of saying, “The Logos is not eternal. God begat him, and before he was begotten, he did not exist.”

God is not in time. Time, like distance, is a relation between physical events and has meaning only in the context of the physical universe. When we say that the Son is begotten of the Father, we do not refer to an event in the remote past, but to an eternal and timeless relation between the Persons of the Godhead.

Although we can have a real relationship with Jesus, we can also speak of who he is in theological terms. This Jesus, whom we worship and proclaim as God and Lord, is in eternal relationship as Son to the Father, in the Holy Spirit. He is also fully human through the Blessed Virgin Mary. This joining of divine and human natures is called the Hypostatic Union – one person with two natures. Because he is God, he has the power to save humanity. Because he is man, we humans can receive this salvation. And the reason for all of this is summed up in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The English writer C.S. Lewis famously presented his argument for the identity of Jesus as God. It’s a famous argument also presented by the philosopher Peter Kreeft of Boston College. Often referred to as “aut Deus aut homo malus:” either God or a bad man.  

In the fourteenth chapter of John’s Gospel, as Jesus is preparing for his death, he makes this claim to his Apostles: “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Lewis argues that only God could make this claim, and if a mere human being did, he would be evil or mad.

Jesus began a ministry when he was around thirty years old, and revealed God the Father to the people of Israel. He also revealed himself as the Son of God, as he fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah. Gathering a group of chosen Apostles around him, Jesus carried out a ministry of healing and teaching, culminating with his arrest and trial, crucifixion, and death. This was his High Priestly sacrifice, as he fulfilled the sacrifices of the Old Covenant by his sacrificial offering of his own life on the Cross.

Jesus reveals the face of God the Father to us. He invites us into the relationship of dynamic love which is the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus desires an intimate friendship with us. He pours his life and love into us through his sacraments. He speaks to us through the Scriptures and through the apostolic witness in the teaching of his Church.